


oh how it settles (the simple breath of adoration)

by wingardiumleviosa111



Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: F/F, prompt fills, soft but maybe also angsty sometimes idk
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-16 16:09:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29703141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wingardiumleviosa111/pseuds/wingardiumleviosa111
Summary: "Jamie already feels like a precious thing — soft when time has told, over and over again, that it is better to be hard, calloused."stolen moments, worlds, and times where Jamie and Dani fall for each other.
Relationships: Dani Clayton & Jamie, Dani Clayton/Jamie, Hannah Grose & Owen Sharma
Comments: 8
Kudos: 31





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr ficlets and prompts that i receive and then fill very slowly lol

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt:
> 
> "jamie’s talking to hannah and owen to ask them to watch the kids for their night of boredom"
> 
> (tweaked a lil bc i rly just wanted them to go to the boring pub)

It’s late afternoon by the time she gets a chance to find Hannah in the warmth of the kitchen, chattering quietly as Owen bustles around the stovetop. 

“Dani!” He greets, grins wide. “We were just talking about you.”

Before Dani can say anything, Hannah lands a light smack on his forearm. “Oh, don’t make it sound like that, you gossip.” She turns to Dani, still hovering awkwardly in the doorway, “Only to say that it’s quite fortunate you found Flora out there this morning before she caught a chill.” 

“Yeah. Yes, it was very lucky,” she taps her fingers idly against the doorframe, suddenly nervous. 

Hannah clocks it immediately, beckoning Dani forward to join her at the table with a warm twinkle.

“Something on your mind, dear?”

Dani perches on the edge of her seat, back straight, and breathes.

“Would you be willing to watch the kids tonight? Jamie and I were thinking of going into Bly.”

Dani’s so busy tracing the grain of wood in front of her that she misses the weighted, intuitive glance that passes between Hannah and Owen, still at the stove.

Or some other time this week —,” Dani hastens to add but Hannah cuts her off with a gentle wave of her hand. 

“Tonight is not a problem at all,” Hannah smiles and it reaches her eyes for the first time in days. “You both go and enjoy yourselves.”

“Are you sure?” Because apparently Dani is one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Hannah nods. 

“I’ll stay as well,” Owen declares, dropping into his seat to settle a lazy arm around the back of Hannah’s chair. “We’ll make a night of it. Can’t have you all alone in a practically _dessert_ ed house, can we?” He holds up a tin of biscuits to emphasize his point.

Hannah’s assurances that he doesn’t need to turn into a groan at his pun. 

“Oh, thank you,” she hums at the two of them, trying desperately to stop the giddy smile she feels blooming on her face. She’s suddenly restless, equal parts nerves and excitement, and what is she going to wear? She hasn’t been on a first date in… well, ever, really. She had just sort of… fallen into it with Eddie and she never knew that being poised on the precipice of falling could feel so terrifyingly lovely. 

Before she really registers it, she’s hopping from her seat, rigid and practically vibrating. Dani’s already halfway out of the kitchen when Hannah’s voice draws her back to lean a hip against the heavy timber of the table. 

“Dani, darling?” 

She turns, takes in the pair, comfortable and at ease with each other in a soft intimacy that aches pleasantly in Dani’s chest whenever she sees them together. 

“Be gentle with her.” 

A noise makes it way out from the back of her throat, something crossed between confusion and a question and she burns, hot and fast, stomach swooping at the sudden implication that she means enough to Jamie to hurt her.

“We’re just going into town, Hannah,” she splutters, hoping beyond all hope that the blush that paints her cheeks doesn’t expose her feelings for Jamie. 

Hannah’s lips twitch, eyes knowing, and Dani wonders if they had been seen in the greenhouse, hands hungry and lips even greedier. 

It’s the only way, she thinks. She had been doing such a good job at keeping her feelings hidden. 

“That woman,” Hannah sighs, rolling her eyes in fond exasperation, “brash and bull-headed as she is, deserves every good thing in this world and it has not been too kind to her.”

Owen nods solemnly, standing as the kettle boils, to pour Hannah a cup. 

She tips her head in thanks but doesn’t reach for it, choosing instead to fix Dani with a watchful eye. 

Hannah has an uncanny ability to read people, Dani has come to realize, and she suspects it’s no different with Jamie. She knows Hannah can read the tension ever present in her own small frame and, though she may not know why, always seems to offer Dani tea in the moments after she sees Eddie staring blankly back at her in the mirror. 

Dani doesn’t know exactly what Hannah is talking about, doesn’t even know if Hannah knows exactly why life has been cruel to Jamie, but she feels it too. The guarded wall that Jamie has built around herself, only chipping away the brick and mortar with the three of them in this room.

And she will do everything she can to do just what Hannah advises because Jamie already feels like a precious thing — soft when time has told, over and over again, that it is better to be hard, calloused.

“She’s one of the very best of us,” Owen nods decisively, leaning over to place a warm hand over Dani’s. “As are you.” 

It’s an acceptance into the circle that is overwhelming, pricks at the back of her eyes and has her glancing away to hide the swell of emotion in her throat. 

“It’s only the pub,” she mutters, but meets Hannah’s kind gaze across the biscuits and nods carefully, resolutely. A promise. 

At Hannah’s soft smile in return, she swallows thickly, ducks her head, and makes her retreat.

“And don’t you come running back early, either!” she calls after Dani. 

Owen snickers. 

“We better not see you until tomorrow afternoon, at the least.”

His chortles and Hannah’s scolding but amused, “Owen!” follow Dani all the way out.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt:
> 
> "older jamie when same sex marriage got legalized here - super happy, but also kinda sad bc she misses dani, and then she decides to changed her last name to clayton"
> 
> (ignore the legality of the name changing part)

Jamie hates the courthouse in Burlington. It’s dreary – the little light that manages to creep through the dusty blinds hidden behind massive rows of filing cabinets – and it’s always fucking freezing. 

It’s invariably a long line, and she hasn’t had to wait in it for years and this time lacks the excitement of the last, when her fingers shook with eager anticipation as she accepted their civil union papers. 

There aren’t even any plants.

The county clerk is younger than she expects, probably in his late thirties, and Jamie wonders if he is as miserable here as it seems, if the darkness creeps into the periphery of his vision until he’s shrouded in it. 

For a brief moment, it reminds her of her father. 

Jesus, if that isn’t the last thing she needs right now.

And, frankly, this whole thing is making her want to go home, to sit amongst her greenery and draw in deep lungfuls of oxygen until the sky is dark outside. By the time she makes it in front of the clerk, she’s already convinced herself this is a bad idea again. 

It’s taken her three years to even make it to this counter.

Three years for the click of Dani’s last name to settle in her ears without shattering. Three years for her to bear the freefall into an embrace of something so Dani that it makes her want to stuff her head into a pillow and scream until there is nothing left. 

There are still moments where it forces her to retreat under the covers for long days at a time, but Dani’s scent is long gone from their apartment and she thinks maybe she can wrap herself in Dani’s warmth in other ways. 

“How can I help you today?” The man asks kindly, once she’s been standing there without noise for a long moment, and it has her blinking through the sharp ever present sting of loss. 

“I have an appointment with the judge to change my last name,” she gets out , presents the documents before she can turn on her heel and sprint to the nearest body of water. 

The clerk’s eyes twinkle as he spots the ring on her finger, wrapped tight around the manila envelope, thinks he has put two and two together. 

“Congratulations!” he grins, directing her into Courtroom Two. 

Jamie can only nod dumbly and her shoes squeak on the linoleum. 

She thinks she’s about to cry – the great, heaving kind of sobs that wreck her throat and paint the room black. 

Just need to get through it, she thinks over and over until she’s breathing again. 

The judge is an older man with gentle eyes who calls her up with an even softer voice.

“Why do you want to change your last name?” 

It’s apparently a customary question and Judge Bernard nods at her encouragingly over the bench when she stumbles over her sentence for the third time.

“It is – was – my … partner’s last name,” she says, firm and stronger than she feels by a mile, and the judge’s face falls a little at the past tense, shuffling through the mess of documents Jamie’s thrown together. 

“Everything is in order, and I think he –,” he pauses on one of the papers, scans it for a moment. It must be their civil union certificate, with Danielle Clayton looped surely next to her own name, and honestly, she didn’t even know if the document was needed, but she would have sooner burned down The Leafling than come back to this courthouse one more time. 

“I think she would be touched, Mrs. Clayton.”

He’s a sweet man, and she can tell that he means well, but he doesn’t know Dani. Doesn’t know if she would be pleased, doesn’t know what her favorite movie was, or how she took her whiskey. 

She would be, and Roman Holiday, and a shot, downed quick and burning, before she would kiss Jamie with a white-hot tongue. 

So she forces a smile, thanks him, and the surname fills her nostrils and her lungs until she’s choking on the way Dani laughed, full and joyous, the way her eyes darkened with surprised arousal, when Jamie called Dani her wife for the first time. 

Jamie Clayton. 

The name is a bruising punch she was expecting, one that she can feel purpling her ribs already, and it feels good. This devotion, icy-hot and trickling down her sternum, is overwhelming and it wakes her in a way little has since the last time she was at Bly.

She turns before the tears can fall and holds them all the way down the cobblestoned streets, all the way up the stairs into the quiet flat.

She keeps them until she’s sinking to her knees, fully clothed, in front of a full bathtub and then, she cries.

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on tumblr @ cosimuhs!


End file.
